


she'll come back around

by mollivanders



Category: Psych
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Coda, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-18
Updated: 2010-03-18
Packaged: 2017-10-30 11:13:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/331146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Juliet shows up at his door that night, soaked to the bone and shaking in the rain, Gus can’t say he’s entirely surprised. S4 coda.</p>
            </blockquote>





	she'll come back around

**Author's Note:**

> **Title: she'll come back around**  
>  Rating: PG-13  
> Characters: Juliet/Gus  
> Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers for the _Psych_ Season 4 finale  
>  Summary: Once upon a time, Juliet had her chance, and wasted it. Now it's come full circle.  
> Disclaimer: Psych belongs to _USA_ , I own nothing.

When Juliet shows up at his door that night, soaked to the bone and shaking in the rain, Gus can’t say he’s entirely surprised.

He is surprised, though, when she steps right against him and presses her mouth to his, scared and unsure.

 _I’m not him,_ he says, pulling away as far as he can. She shakes her head, shaking raindrops from her hair to his neck, and the thin set of her mouth predicts her response. _I know,_ she asserts. _You were there tonight._

The unspoken _he wasn’t_ hangs in the air for a fraction of a second until her arms are wrapped around him in a crushing hug and Gus is lost for words. She’s not crying, it’s just raining; she’s not shaking, it’s just cold outside.

 

He wraps her in a large blanket and makes a cup of cocoa that she takes without meeting his eyes. _Shawn’ll come around,_ he says without really knowing what’s going on. She’s been like this all year, fragile and guarded because she has to be. 

But Juliet just clenches the cup of cocoa tighter and whispers savagely _He had his chance._ It’s an echo of a joke from a time when life wasn’t so serious and girls weren’t being kidnapped by psychopaths. _Yin took Abigail too,_ he answers, feeling the need to defend his friend (but if he’d shown up, there wouldn’t be a need).

 _I know you’re his friend and I know you care for him,_ she starts. 

_But I cared for him too. And while I was sitting in that chair, waiting to die, my biggest regret was letting myself get killed over being second place. Everything, everything I’ve done since coming here should have meant I wouldn’t be second best, at least as a cop. But I was second best there too. And he knows._

Which ‘he’ Juliet means is hardly relevant right now so Gus reaches over and grasps her hand. _It’s never happening again,_ she finishes and looks at him. _And you can’t be second best either. You deserve better._

She puts the hot chocolate down.

 

Juliet’s fierce, and warm, and unforgiving (and Shawn’s never going to forgive him either) but Gus doesn’t care right now, just pushes back, doesn’t forgive her for what she’s doing to him. Teeth and lips and the scratch of the rug against his back all melt into a blur as she shuts her eyes, arches back (holds him tightly).

 

In the morning, Gus wakes alone to a furious voicemail from Lassiter – O’Hara’s put in for a leave of absence and won’t say where she’s gone. Gus knows he means to find her, knows they’re partners and one’s not the same without the other. Normally, he would help.

But he respects the girl too much for destroying his own partner without apology or regret so he just tells the man, _she’ll come back around_.

When Shawn calls, he can't tell him the same (can't lie). Instead, he doesn’t answer the phone and lets his friend call until the battery runs out; hits the freeway in his company car to let them foot the bill.

She'll come back around; he's still deciding.

_Finis_


End file.
